UK film to get same proportion of Lottery funds from 2009-2019

Tessa Jowell,the UK's Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, hasannounced that the percentage of National Lottery funds allocated betweensport, arts and film and heritage recipients won't change for the period2009-2019.

The Lottery's "good causes"funding gets $.58 (28p) from every $1.84 (£1) Lottery ticket. Sport, arts andfilm, and heritage each receive 16.6% of the good cause funds, with the restdistributed by the Big Lottery Fund to support charities, health, education andthe environment. The UK Film Council and Scottish Screen are the distributingbodies for the film funding.

The government said thatduring the consultation period, the public had supported the way the Lotteryfunds are divided currently. The UK Film Council noted that during theconsultation period, the film sector received 8,000 responses compared to theother sectors' average of 5,000-6,000 responses.

"The sector did a terrificjob in speaking up for film with the result that Lottery cash for film has beensafeguarded over the next 10 years," said John Woodward of the UK Film Council,which had lobbied the industry extensively to participate in the consultation."In addition, Tessa Jowell will announce todaythat from next year $5.53m (£3m) a year will be transferred from ArtsCouncil England to the UK Film Council to be ploughed backinto film activity."

Jowell announced a new pilot voting scheme, Your Pound,Your Choice, which will allow customers at some lottery retailers to vote forwhich local projects get Lottery funding. The pilot programme will start inAugust, with up to five projects in two unnamed regions competing for Lotterygrants of up to $92,172 (£50,000). It wasn't announced if any of those projectswould be film-related.

The time period also covers2012, when London will host the Olympic Games. In December 2003, the The Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Bill establishedthat the National Lottery would contribute $756m (£410m) to the Olympic Games between 2009-2012. After winning the bid, the government setup an additional distribution body, the Olympic Lottery Distributor.

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